[Gdal-dev] GDAL 1.2.0 Beta Release - Error

[Frank Warmerdam]

Lorenzo Moretti wrote:
> YOU see the bands:
> 1st band is BAND_B (BLUE)
> 2nd band is BAND_G (GREEN)
> 3th band is BAND_R (RED)
> 4th band is BAND_N (NEAR IR)
> 
> Quick Bird has this format but gdal and grass read only .TIF files 
> without reading .IMD file.
> The BAND_B for gdal is BAND_RED and BAND_R is BAND_BLUE. 

Lorenzo,

You are correct that the GDAL TIFF reader does not attempt to read the
QuickBird specific .imd file.  I would like to stress that the .imd file
is *not* part of the TIFF standard, or even a widely used convention in
the geospatial world.  It is a QuickBird specific metadata file.

QuickBird has chosen to write out a TIFF file with a photometric interpretation
contrary to what their metadata says.  That's their business, but it isn't
really reasonable to expect GDAL or other products to always go digging
around for this .imd file just to see if this is a backwards quickbird file.

 > This is wrong

It is wrong that GDAL doesn't read the .imd file, or the interpretation of
the band colors is wrong?  The final result is wrong, but it is quite
arguable whether what GDAL does is wrong or not.  However, I am not really
prepared to argue about it anymore.

Best regards,
-- 
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I set the clouds in motion - turn up   | Frank Warmerdam, warmerdam at pobox.com
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